/ Beckoning

Some days he would see her after an extended absence and beckon with the calluses on his elbows, scratch a nonexistent itch in the hollow behind his earlobe, and regret that most of the world's treasure has long been claimed by the time you are old enough to appreciate it, leaving you to fall in with the beggars and the thieves. Or the ascetics who look away, the artists who make their own, or the mad who see it where it's not. The compassionate who care for what's been discarded, good hearted until years of ugliness have left them with such sweet regret. Or the vandals and their if-not-me-then-no-one cans of spray paint. The very patient, who wait until it has nearly passed, though it doesn't really, not when your eyes are closed to everything but remembrance.

He would think that maybe she is even more, or that he is perhaps a little less, knowing that the blinds on the window of this day were rapidly drawing shut, that whereas he would bend at the waist, she still bends at the knees, a little to the left, some elegant bow to the books on the bottom row, her favorite authors, she had said. Oh, I wish he would just read. Anything, really. The goddamned toothpaste label.

She liked them because they were overlooked, and it made the reading feel more intimate, more exclusive. She had given him one she had read, and he did so without ever speaking to her of it, not wanting to seem the treasure too eager to be found, but he thought of it, nonetheless, whenever he would see her after an extended absence, beckon her by reciting the names of the characters and the names of their fates, in his head, in the hollow behind his earlobe.

He had some friends in those days, but he would rarely talk of her, and the times he did were indecipherable, like poorly drawn maps, hastily written directions with wrong turns and inaccurate legends. He would say, "This tractor reminds me of a book someone gave me. They had overworked the field with a moldboard plough, like that one there. In the very beginning, they had more than they could have ever imagined. The soil soon gave way to hardpan, and they nearly starved." They would puff on their cigars a moment, and he'd rub the calluses on his elbows, "But that's not really so much a problem with this newer equipment, I suppose."

"We're really just gonna use it for our flower garden. I don't imagine we're in any immediate danger, but we'll stock the freezer if you're worried." They laughed, and he did, too, and they were all back to talking about the same thing once more. But he felt like a book on the bottom shelf.

The next time he saw her, he would call out, 'Principessa!' to let her know, he swore on it. But not this time, because she had already paid for her items, had already manipulated the keys until the one for the car was at her fingertips, had not looked around even once, though he had beckoned. Still, he went home smiling on these sorts of days, having thrown his lot in with the thieves.